Frozen Planet: David Attenborough stumbles on the melting ice

Charles Moore reviews the final episode of Frozen Planet, BBC1.

The BBC, for some reason, billed this, the last programme in David Attenborough’s series, as a major statement by the living sage on the future of the planet. It was not so.

On air, Sir David clearly wanted to tell us that things might get pretty bad. At the North Pole, he declared that “Something significant is likely to happen here”, possibly by 2020. We weren’t supposed to feel that it would be significant in a pleasant sort of way. Down in the Antarctic in his fur-lined hood, he opined that melting ice-sheets “could contribute to a sea rise of over a metre by the end of the century”. And there was the familiar refrain, which I seem to remember from every Attenborough programme of my childhood: “The old way of life is under threat.”

But that was about it, really. Lots of “could” and “likely” and “may”.

As is proper – and as the BBC, in its eco-mania, has previously failed to do on numerous occasions – the other side of the story was put. The more this is done, the more the phrase, so beloved of eco-politicians, that “the science is settled” is shown up as preposterous intellectual bullying.

Somewhat unenthusiastically, Sir David explained that what was bad for the native species might be good for other ones. As it warms up a bit, killer whales are heading north more than before, and, down south, Gentoo penguins are benefiting at the expense of Adelie ones. Oil and gas exploration have got easier. It will be great for trade if the North-West Passage is clear of ice in the summer. If the entire Antarctic ice sheet were to melt, we were told, sea levels all over the world would rise by 60 metres but, we were also told, it won’t. Beyond a vaguely uneasy feeling that climate change around the poles might be important and dangerous, the programme had no message.

For which relief, much thanks. The reason that David Attenborough has been so popular for half a century is that he has very little to say. Like most of the best television presenters, he is essentially a compere rather than a thinker, polemicist, or scientist (although I assume that his scientific knowledge is good). It was grievously disappointing a while back when he started banging on about the need to reduce the human population of the planet. It was clear that he had given little thought to the moral, political and economic implications of such a policy.

Attenborough is not primarily a viewy person. He is a front man, possibly the best ever. He is an enthusiast. Constantly disproving the old saw that one should never act with children or animals, he displays a charming relationship with the latter. (Actually, he should try it with the former, too. He would be a wonderful children’s presenter, delighting in “the things they say”. At the end of this programme there was a cloying sequence when our hero recited the words of Wonderful World, including the line that babies now born will “learn much more than I’ll ever know”.)

He understands and loves the astonishing variety of the animal kingdom, boyishly works his way into its good graces, and has the best possible cameras to record its doings.

Presumably, the quality of Sir David’s information is high, but the truth is that one does not exactly learn all that much from a typical Attenborough programme. On this occasion, I watched attentively and took copious notes, but I still cannot quite remember whether the wait for the melting of the frozen Hay river is supposed to inform us about climate change, or whether it is just the occasion for some very exciting pictures and a chat with a charming local old-timer who almost always predicts the melting moment right.

The point is that one acquires the will to learn, or least the feeling that one might acquire the will to learn, some day or other, if only one had more time. Like some great television chef or gardener, Attenborough makes his world enticing, even for those who won’t get round to cooking the recipes or weeding the borders. Unlike them, he rarely upstages his subject matter. If I were a polar bear or even a “moulin” – the hole in the ice through which meltwater drains away – I would be very grateful for Attenborough’s flattering desire to make me famous to millions of viewers.

As a human being, I sometimes get irritated by his implication that my race (unless its members are colourfully indigenous, like Eskimos) is always the problem. How, after all, would we appreciate the wonders of nature if it were not for human beings like Sir David to introduce us to them? But, on the whole, I sit back and relax with total confidence in my host’s ability to show me the best shots and amuse and amaze me for an hour or so. Just beam me up polar-bear cubs learning to dive, or penguins waddling around like Etonians after a good tea, and I am happy.

Perhaps because it is supposed to uphold public service broadcasting, the BBC finds it hard to resist the temptation to moralise on programmes of this kind. Some of the easiest moralising is to be had by contrasting the innocence of nature with the wickedness of man. I feel that this is a mistake. Sir David Attenborough himself is a fine example of the innocence of man - a great entertainer, who has recruited for his shows for 50 years the greatest performers on Earth.